our friends and defeat our enemies in t middle east when our words are not backed by deeds, when our defense spending is being arbitrarily and deeply cut, when we have no trade agenda to speak of and the perception of our strategy is not one of partnership, but of passivity. it is time to change course in the middle east. one final thing, carol, on a campaign conference call yesterday romney's foreign policy team talked about some presidents of past they might be shaping their foreign policy principles after. they talked about the presidencies of jfk, truman and even bill clinton. after that first debate when a lot of pundits on the right and the left were sensing that mitt romney might be moving to the middle on domestic policy issues, there might be some of that on foreign policy when we hear this speech later on this morning. >> jim acosta, we'll check back with you. >>> okay. let's take another peek at the obama campaign's preemptive strike. remember, it's called a prebuttal because it's challenging a speech romney will not give for a couple more hours. listen. >> when our u.s. diplomats